275 days Until 2016 - Happy New Year
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319 days Until Valentine's Day
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314 days Until Mardi Gras! (Pazcki Day!)
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349 days Until International Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA Day! (IEATAPETA Day)
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4 days Until Easter!
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22 days Until Impossible Astronaut Day! (The Silence/Tally Day)
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54 days Until Towel Day!
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71 days Until Bad Wolf Day!
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213 days Until Halloween!
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216 days Until Election Day!
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239 days Until Thanksgiving
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268 days Until Christmas Day!

Our pets are generally very healthy. Recently however, the Siberian has been scratching at his left ear. Then he scratches and cries. On Saturday I went over to try and look in his ear and found that it felt like there was an egg yolk in his outer ear. It seemed that it was almost as big as an egg yolk too.

I looked some stuff up on the internet and found pet forums. There is a lot of information there. You can ask questions and get answers. They have pages for all kinds of animals, large and small. Of course, always check with the vet!

He didn’t seem to be too bothered by that, but his inner ear was still bothering him.

Yesterday we took him to the vet. They had an “all-day” appointment. With this type of appointment, the dog is brought in in the morning and then they take a look at him when they have a few minutes throughout the day.

He had a hematoma in his left ear. They said this could be from shaking his head or from scratching at it. He also has an ear infection. That’s what was causing the discomfort in his ear that he was trying to alleviate by scratching.

So, they drained his hematoma and used a little steroid to help keep it from refilling. They told us there’s a 60% chance it won’t come back and 40% chance it might. Another treatment option is to just let it be and it should resolve itself in a month or two.

So, for now the poor baby has wear what the vet calls an Elizabethan Collar, but what we (and the writers of UP!) call THE CONE OF SHAME.

You can see his poor ear in the photo. The doctor said that “crinkle” may be permanent. We think it gives him “character”.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Over at Althouse there’s a conversation about how many groups moved to the GOP this election cycle. People were talking about turnout, which seemed lower in most cases than the last election. It certainly was so in my precinct. It seemed good at the time I voted, but it was down considerably from 2008.

I commented there:

I think we ought to get rid of early voting altogether.

Early voting may have suppressed turnout on both sides. The media kept showing long lines at early voting locations and the media kept trying to guess who was “winning” the early vote.

This may have kept many people home on election day. They didn’t want to deal with long lines (and how many of them would actually be there? The media only reported on the long lines – they didn’t report on the many (I’m sure) locations without long lines. Just as we hear about plane crashes but not the successful landings that most make.

With the guesses as to who was “winning” the early vote, some people may have decided it was over already and didn’t go vote.

I hope so. We need fiscal responsibility along with liberty. We need to drop “special” rights for anyone. We need to do away with affirmative action. We need to do away with legislating “health” such as Bloomberg is trying in NYC.

Stop telling insurance companies what they must cover and allow people to buy insurance that covers what the person wants covered. My mother has no need to cover maternity or prostrate issues. Why should she be paying for coverage for those things?

Allow people in New Jersey to buy insurance from a company in North Dakota if they wish.

Divorce health insurance from employment. Allow us to purchase it like we do our auto, home, and life insurance. Let us bundle it with auto, home, and life if we wish.

Make health insurance actual insurance again, not the pre-paid health it is now. When I was a kid, we paid the doctor when we went (or had a payment plan). One had insurance for catastrophic and hospitalization. You know you’ll get sick – that’s something you plan for. The hospitalization is what you’re insuring against.

I should also be able to choose the level of deductible that I want. Government shouldn’t set deductible levels. If I would choose a $5,000 deductible for lower premium payments I shouldn’t be limited to a $2,500 deductible with a higher premium because the government doesn’t think I should (could) pay that much out of pocket.

Health Savings Accounts (and health reimbursement accounts) should be available to everyone without a use-it-or-lose-it aspect. If I don’t use all my health care savings in one year, I should be able to carry it over to the next. Maybe next year I’ll have more illnesses than I did this year.

Being able to save this way can allow one to have the money in the health account when it’s needed as one gets older.

All pensions need to be defined contribution rather than defined benefit. One has control over how much to contribute to retirement, one can’t know that there will be a certain amount available in 20 years…

I voted here in Lake County, Illinois around 10 am. I didn’t have to wait in line, but I had good timing. There was no one in my letter line, then no one at the precinct line, and an open booth just as I needed one. The machine that eats the ballots was open just as I got there too. I had one lady ask to see if there were initials on my ballot. There were three machines to eat ballots, two precincts to each machine, so the guy at the machine made sure my number matched the machine.

I’ve never seen that kind of crowd at 10 am. The pollworkers told me that it’s been steady all morning and there was a line at 6 am when they opened.

I’m in the new 10th CD (it was 8th before). There’s actually a chance that the 10th could make the difference for Illinois in this election. It’s a long, long shot, but there is hope for change.

Four years ago our precinct had 86% turnout. I’ll be very interested in seeing what it has this year. Four years ago our precinct had 666 registered voters. I don’t know what the count is this year. I’ll find out later how many registered voters we have and what the turnout is.